Weekend Away

I haven't been updating the blog lately as much as I'd like to. This post is a little behind since it was last weekend that we went away. But, at least I'm getting it on here.

It is a very rare thing for our family to go anywhere. Addi, in fact, was very confused by the hotel concept this past weekend. She actually thought that the hotel belonged to us since we would say things like, "We'll head back to our hotel and then..." She wondered why we had never come to stay at our hotel before. Before having kids, I loved to travel. But, as you know, things change drastically when you have children. For one thing, traveling is far too expensive, and two, there is really no such thing as a "vacation" when you're traveling with kids. Sure, you can have a fun getaway, but it will still be work, not vacation. Of course, going away and staying in a hotel is very exciting for them though.

So, when we got the opportunity for a free three night hotel stay up in Santa Monica, the kids were thrilled. And, I must say, it turned out to be a great weekend. Sure, there is the fact that when sharing a hotel room with kids, Jay and I also have to lay still and quiet in our bed at 8:00 so that they will go to sleep, as well as some other minor traveling with children difficulties. But, our kids have gotten to the ages now where it's getting easier and easier to do these sorts of things, and the weekend really could not have been better. The weather was perfect and we all had fun. I'll try to condense the weekend into some pictures of the things that we got to enjoy...

Riding our bikes along the beach from Santa Monica down to Venice in the beautiful sunshine...

Playing at the beach...

A tea party at a real tea house...

Enjoying the ferris wheel on the pier at sunset...

Mimi and Papa and Lexi and Linzi coming up to join us for a day...

Watching the street performers at Venice Beach and Third Street Promenade...

And, finally, I will leave you with our favorite street performers (unfortunately, I didn't capture on video a lot of their best moves, and you do have to ignore some of the silly antics!)...